National Spark The Stoogie And Blow It In The Air At The Same Time Day.

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Not all peace and love: A man gets kicked in the head as protesters fight during a celebration of marijuana in Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto

High times for American marijuana smokers as police allow thousands of '4/20' pot protesters to light up across the country

Marijuana smokers across the America lit up in public parks, outside statehouses and in the posh confines of a Hummer parked outside a pot gardening superstore to observe the movement's annual 'high holiday' yesterday.

Those who weren't within whiffing distance of a college campus or a reggae concert may not have realised that Tuesday was '4/20', the celebration-cum-mass civil disobedience derived from '420' - insider shorthand for cannabis consumption.

Advocates from New Hampshire to California trumpeted marijuana's rising commercial and political acceptance while producing collective clouds of pungent smoke - often under the watchful eyes of law enforcement officers who for the most part let the parties proceed.

A daylong rally in Denver's Civil Centre Park drew thousands of people, as did the public smoking event that persisted at the University of Colorado in Boulder despite discouragement from college administrators.

Colorado politicians coincidentally marked the day by backing new regulations for dispensaries selling medical marijuana.

In New Hampshire, about 100 people rallied in the state capital of Concord on the eve of a Senate vote to decriminalise small amounts of pot.

Some lit up joints as state troopers watched from inside the Statehouse.

Governor John Lynch said he will veto the bill if it reaches him.

In Juneau, Alaska, about 20 young people, two dogs and a mother pushing a stroller marched in driving rain, whooping and chanting, 'Yes we cannabis!' - a play on Barack Obama's campaign slogan. Their route took them past the state Capitol and City Hall.

In California, where voters in November will consider whether to tax the sale of marijuana for recreational use, a three-month-old cultivation equipment emporium in Oakland got a 24-hour jump start, sponsoring a '420 Eve' festival on Monday.

Several hundred revelers lined up outside the 15,000sq ft iGrow 'hydroponics superstore'. Security guards kept them at bay until 4.20pm, when they could enter a medical marijuana delivery service raffle to win an giant joint and a tour of a 53ft long portable grow room with a starting price of $60,000.

'I wouldn't have thought we would be able to consume on site,' marveled John Corral, 19, of San Jose, after he obtained a wristband that gave him access to the event's two 'vapour lounges,' the one inside the Hummer and another inside a companion Range Rover limousine.

Two years ago, before he had a doctor's recommendation to smoke pot, Corral commemorated 4/20 on Hippie Hill, the Golden Gate Park promontory where an earlier generation of pot aficionados made their stand.

Marijuana use - medically and recreationally - is getting more attention these days, with voters in California and possibly three other states set to decide whether to legalize adult use of the drug.

South Dakota voters will consider in the fall whether to join California and the 13 other states that allow medical cannabis use.

Most Americans still oppose legalising marijuana, but larger majorities believe pot has medical benefits and the government should allow its use for that purpose, according to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released yesterday.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the drug's steady movement from counterculture indulgence to mainstream acceptance was evident on Tuesday, when four cable television channels dedicated 'a good chunk of programming to 420'.

St. Pierre said that with the terms 'marijuana' or 'cannabis' regularly showing up on the top Internet searches, it's clear that groups like his, which has lobbied to decriminalize marijuana since 1970, are no longer blowing smoke.

'There is a large mainstreaming of all of this,' he said. 'Some of it is happening because commercial entities looking to comport with local social mores and values are taking advantage of this bizarre numerology.'

There are a variety of stories about the origin of 420, but pot advocates generally attribute the term to the time when a group of San Francisco Bay area high schoolers would gather to smoke marijuana during the early 1970s.

The term was then popularised by High Times magazine and the Grateful Dead.

At the iGrow event, Tom Patton of GrowOp Technology, proudly discussed the inspiration for the 'Big Bud' growing trailer he developed with Derek Peterson, a former stock broker.

Patton said he kept hearing about pot growers who 'were constantly putting up and taking down' grow rooms built inside warehouses or residential homes because of complaints from neighbours, fires sparked by faulty wiring or threats of law enforcement raids.

His pot room on wheels, which comes outfitted with a security system and technology to adjust temperature and humidity levels from an iPhone, may not completely eliminate the last concern, but that hasn't stopped a pair of New York bankers from investing in the invention.

'This is an enabling technology, not a hiding-out technology,' Patton said.

The lure of revenue and respectability has prompted some veterans of the marijuana wars to diversify.

Joshua Freeman, a Sonoma County pot grower, was at the 420 Eve festival handing out samples of the specialty plant food he recently developed and is trying to market.

'We are not just a bunch of stoners sitting back on a couch playing video games,' Freeman said.

From Wiki.

420, 4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) refers to consumption of cannabis and, by extension, a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture. The date 4/20 is sometimes referred to as "Weed Day" or "Pot Day".[1]

The term was coined from a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California, United States in 1971.[2][3] The teens would meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana outside the school.[4]

According to an April 2009 article on the The Huffington Post, the group called itself the Waldos because its members hung out by a wall after school. Writer Ryan Grim, citing interviews with anonymous Waldos, claims that the group met by the statue at 4:20 p.m. to begin a search for a crop of abandoned cannabis growing near Point Reyes that they had heard about. They never found the stash, Grim writes, but smoked plenty of marijuana while looking for it.

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im not for kids blazing it up with bongs bigger than them, or old men gettin kicked on the ground, but im definately for this kind of mass scale blazing bringin people together like that lol. gonna have to go visit canada during 4/20 just to experience what this is like.

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people been getting high on april 20th for a long time mate, similarly 4:20pm, especially on april 20th

anyway i copped an 8th of blue cheese from a guy who doesnt really shot bud his dad sells coke and watnot and gives his son bud that people give him when they owe him money, so he comes out with this ramp out bag saying he doesnt have scales so he eyed it up, i keep it simple nod and duck out as the bag looks like a quarter bunned 2 fatheads the bud was live still had over an 8th left then i go and lose it somehow, the best deal of the pengest bud and i go lose it after 2 zoots felt like sh*t still feel like sh*t i have to get more but i know the deal wont be the same

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im not for kids blazing it up with bongs bigger than them, or old men gettin kicked on the ground, but im definately for this kind of mass scale blazing bringin people together like that lol. gonna have to go visit canada during 4/20 just to experience what this is like.

lol bloody feind

but real talk though i think that would be sick, mass smoking like that

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whats the big deal with 4/20 tho? why that date and those numbers. proper comes across as something a random cliche stoner would think off as significant while he is "high".

people been getting high on april 20th for a long time mate, similarly 4:20pm, especially on april 20th

anyway i copped an 8th of blue cheese from a guy who doesnt really shot bud his dad sells coke and watnot and gives his son bud that people give him when they owe him money, so he comes out with this ramp out bag saying he doesnt have scales so he eyed it up, i keep it simple nod and duck out as the bag looks like a quarter bunned 2 fatheads the bud was live still had over an 8th left then i go and lose it somehow, the best deal of the pengest bud and i go lose it after 2 zoots felt like sh*t still feel like sh*t i have to get more but i know the deal wont be the same